One of the things I appreciate most about living in the Bay Area is the extensive and diverse motorcycling community that thrives here. Driven by good weather and fantastic topography, riding a bike in California is like no other place on Earth. Not surprisingly, our two-wheeled community has many annual traditions that make this place unique.

The flipside that often comes up is the “next year” syndrome. Because there’s always “something,” it becomes all too easy to defer really good things. The annual Spring Fling was one of those rides for me. Whether it was work, travel, or not feeling like a good enough rider (especially in my early days), I hadn’t made this ride yet until this year.

Several people on this ride came from my community down in the South Bay whom I hadn’t seen in quite a long while. The ride lead is truly a fantastic human with extensive knowledge of the central coast, far beyond the numbered highways I know. It’s been a wet winter for us, which means great floral blooms, and I wouldn’t let the Spring Fling slip by for another year.

However, the weather had very different plans. Thursday night, a winter storm moved into view, sending temperatures plummeting. Most Bay Area peaks had snow (WTF in April?). J and I looked at the weather and said screw it, we’re going. At worst, we have two out of three wet days, which in motorcycle speak also means one out of three days in great sun.

Most of the way down, we stayed on US 101 as the storm cells appeared to be to the east of us, leaving a gap along the freeway. We chose dry over interesting. Highway 25? It’s absolutely amazing to ride. Highway 25 with a big black cloud hovering over it with the sun over US 101? Yeah, we’re going to slab it. We mostly did well-dodging clouds and showers, making good time down the freeway. That was until we hit Bradley. Bradley is a small declining town on the eastern side of US 101 in Monterey County.

We pulled off the freeway to regroup as the rain came down at a pretty good clip. The snow on mountain peaks followed us all the way down. With the rain the whole narrative of the ride changed. It got cold. It got dark. And it definitely got wet. After we pulled off the GPS suggested taking a small byway away from the freeway. I decided to tickle that adventure. As we got further down the road, the ambient temperature sensor on the bike dropped from 57° to 42° in a matter of minutes. The wet weather gave the no-stop sign town an eerie quietness throughout the air. J and I laughed and decided the anticipation around rain was worse than actually riding in the rain. There was something unique about being in a quiet place with the gentle patter of the rain all around on a secondary roadway that time forgot.

Twenty minutes later, the sun came out, and we began to dry out. By the time we reached Atascadero, it didn’t look like we had experienced any rain at all!

Friday Route:

As we were walking home from dinner, the ride leader asked, “What time should we kick off tomorrow?” Various answers popped in between 7:30 and 9:30, yours truly favoring the latest departure. Waking up Saturday morning and peeking out the motel room, I could see frost on everyone’s motorcycle at 7:30. I was definitely glad kickstand up was at 930 that morning.

We traveled all over San Luis Obispo County, far from major highways within this land. We were up close to farms, wineries, forests, and a brief touch with the ocean. I love riding under the experience of a tenured ride lead. There is something to be said about showing up and just participating. At least half the day’s roads were unfamiliar to me, and the other half were favorites of mine in the area.

Highway 229 – Rossi’s driveway! Yep, I’ll definitely take that one. While we didn’t take much of Highway 58, it’s another fantastic dragon’s tail out to the Central Valley. Random 1½ lane wide no center divide goat trail giving an up-close view of the local surroundings? Yep, I will take those, too!

Come April, mowing season begins in full force in these parts. Dry grass is a huge fire hazard as fire can quickly run through a field traversing large swaths of land. This time of year tractors, lawnmowers, weed whackers, and anything else that is able to cut grass – does. The smell of freshly cut grass with a touch of exhaust permeates the atmosphere.

Several times, I’ve traveled along the 101 freeway and saw Vandenberg Air Force Base on the map off to the west and sparsely populated Lompoc. I never had any reason to go there, but I wondered what Highway 1 in Southern California looked like. My wonderment was never strong enough to deviate from my path to get there, but it was strong enough to keep it on the list for “someday.”

Shortly after Donald Trump took office in 2016, I remember his order to carve out a portion of the Air Force to be redeployed as the Space Force. I remember thinking hmmm… At the time, but I didn’t understand the real impact of that decision. So here I am in that general area with no solid plans for the afternoon. I asked J, “What do you think about visiting Vandenberg Space Force Base?” If I was up for it, he was up for it, so we went off.

On every sign that pointed towards Vandenberg, I could see a small placard updating A.F.B. to S.F.B., noting the base’s new classification. At the entrance, it became clear that we couldn’t get on the base, the gift shop was closed, and the gift shop was only open to military and other approved persons. So, in some ways, the trip was a bust, but this civilian can check Vandenberg off the list.

Buellton was our destination for the day. The ride from Vandenberg to Buellton was surprisingly agricultural. The iconic green and yellow of John Deere dotted the landscape as agriculture ruled these lands.

Saturday Route:

Fun stuff provided by our ride lead^(tm)

Come Sunday, J and I had some decisions to make. It was 293 miles from Buellton back to home. That was a long day for me, not even adding any side trips to add interesting roads to the mix. Most of the crew lived in Santa Cruz or the South Bay, so they didn’t have the distance challenges that we did. Those who lived in the North Bay spent Sunday night in the South Bay.

We decided to skip riding around Santa Barbara County, which was a bummer, as we had enjoyed doing the same in San Luis Obispo the day before. J’s bike needed gas every 110 miles, so I had to include that in the route planning. We both got up about seven and saw a similar layer of frost across everyone’s bikes, so an 8 AM departure wasn’t in my cards, but we didn’t have the luxury of a 9:30 AM departure like we did the day before. Kickstands up was at 9 AM.

We headed north on the 101 freeway towards Paso Robles. I wanted to get a good jump on the day getting us back into northern San Luis Obispo County. I love traveling along the curves of the mountains west of Paso Robles between San Antonio Lake and Nacimiento Lake. With the hills so green, the topography looked like something out of a Heidi movie!

I remember reading some time ago that no invention change the West like barbed wire. The West’s vast open spaces could now be domesticated using the land for ranching, farming, and other human activities. Seeing the rusty barb here clearly differentiated mine from yours showing the lake far off in the distance.

As San Luis Obispo County yielded to Monterey County, I couldn’t help but think what the area around my hometown might’ve looked like 100 years ago. The area surrounding Jolon Road was similar in distance from the ocean as my hometown. I couldn’t help but think this must’ve been what it looked like: wide open fields dotted with clusters of trees throughout the landscape.

Once we stopped, my buddy who grew up in the same hometown confirmed my suspicion that it looked like that even just 40 years ago. The amount of growth in the Bay Area is insane over my lifetime and we have so much more housing to build to keep the community somewhat sustainable.

We stopped at one of my favorite wineries: Marin’s Vineyard.  The winery is run by a father and daughter duo. I stumbled into the tasting room on their opening weekend many years ago. Both of them are such lovely people that I always try to make a stop when I’m passing through the area.

The other bit of fun to include on the northbound journey is Highway 25. Traveling across the San Benito Valley, Highway 25 is a motorcyclist’s dream. Virtually no automobile traffic with plenty of turns in a 75-mile package makes for a fantastic afternoon run. The wildflowers were out in force, and I didn’t expect to see a giant lake by the roadside. We’ve had so much rain this year that the water has begun to pool off the west side of the road.

Mother nature was beginning to set up for round two of the rain. While we somewhat enjoyed round one, both of us agreed we should keep moving to prevent another round of getting soaked.

J’s bike, a 2002 R1150R was definitely the bell of the ball this weekend. He’s got nearly 40,000 miles on the bike and it looks brand-new. Just about every rider on the weekend smiled and remarked on the beauty of this two wheeled vehicle.

And there you have it: the 2024 Spring Fling was a fantastic success. I’m super glad I made the time to go and looking forward to more adventures in the year ahead.

Sunday Route: